She mastered 30,000 words to win with wastrel

Before Snigdha Nandipati could even consider the word that would clinch the Countywide Spelling Bee on Tuesday, the judges intervened amid a murmur of confusion in the audience.

The word presented to Snigdha was oddly pronounced “woss-trel.” The bee master repeated it, this time using the common pronunciation of “wastrel,” along with this definition: “Something rejected or discarded as useless or imperfect.”

Snigdha pretended to write the word in the palm of her hand, and then she nailed it.

A seventh-grader at the private Francis Parker School, Snigdha won the 42nd annual San Diego Union-Tribune Countywide Spelling Bee and a shot at the national title in Washington, D.C.

“I’m really astonished,” said Snigdha, 12. “I’ve always been interested in words. I study them, but I don’t always use them — I just store them in my head.”

Snigdha beat out a record 94 seventh- and eighth-graders in the competition that was held in the Old Town Theatre. At just over 4 1/2 hours, the contest was among the longest in memory, with more a dozen students making it to the fifth round.

The final five was quickly whittled down to two, due to words like “tumultuary” and “fiduciary” and “alopecia.”

In the end, it was Snigdha and Rochelle Marifosque, an eighth-grader at the School of Creative and Performing Arts, taking turns at the microphone. Rochelle tripped on “haplology” and placed second in the contest — for the second year.

Bee master David Hay could not hold back his praise throughout the event, the 30th that he has officiated.

“Where do these people come from,” said Hay, who called this year’s crop of spellers the most incredible he has seen.

Hay, an English professor at the University of San Diego, said the student spellers give him hope that the language has a new generation of caretakers.

“Language is so important. If we are not precise about language and about what we are saying, all kinds confusion and misunderstandings happen,” he said. “I like seeing so many students who are enthusiastic about words.”

For Snigdha’s parents, immigrants from India, the bee win is especially meaningful.

“I remember in the village in India, I was not good in English,” said Krishnarao Nandipati, who helped his daughter prepare for the spelling bee by testing her with flash cards. “It means so much to us that she knows this language — and the mother language.”

From the age of 4, Snigdha has loved to spell and pronounce words, Madhavi Nandipati said of her daughter. She won the Long Beach Spelling Bee in 2009.

Snigdha estimates that she mastered 30,000 words to prepare for the spelling bee, with help from her father. Memorizing words and refraining from texting, instant messaging and other forms of social media that “kill words,” has also helped, said Krishnarao Nandipati, an engineer who frowns on the popular modes of digital communication.

As the Countywide spelling bee champion, Snigdha and a parent will receive a trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Scripps National Spelling Bee June 1-2. The bee is coordinated by the Union-Tribune and the San Diego County Office of Education.